Shimla: Himachal Pradesh has been facing the fury of floods this monsoon, with the swollen Beas river and its tributaries wreaking havoc in Kullu and Mandi districts, destroying houses and commercial establishments, sweeping away vehicles, and damaging roads and highways.
Experts and state government officials have pointed to the stoppage of mechanised riverbed mining as one of the reasons behind the rising water level in rivers.
“One of the reasons behind the flooding is shrunken riverbeds due to sediment deposited over the years that cause rivers to flow over the banks. In Mandi and Kullu, no mining activity is allowed in the Beas,” Atul Sharma, a geologist in Himachal’s mining department, told ThePrint. “Scientific mining is the solution to this.”
The view was first aired by Public Works Department (PWD) minister Virkamaditya Singh on 11 July, when the first round of floods had hit Himachal.
After touring the inundated Sainj and Kullu region, Singh had told the media that a lot of debris and boulders had been deposited on the riverbed. “Controlled scientific mining of the riverbed is the solution to this, and the matter should be taken up,” he said.
Officials from the PWD and Jal Shakti departments also underlined the need to clear up the riverbed, not just of the Beas but also the Yamuna, which caused devastation in Sirmaur, and other smaller streams.
“After the recent flooding of Kullu and Mandi, we have to take some measures to clean up the river which is full of sand and gravel. It has to be removed so that the river flows in its correct path,” a PWD official said.
A senior Himachal government official told ThePrint that the state is considering the possibility of allowing controlled riverbed mining to remove the sediment.
The idea has, however, raised the hackles of environmentalists who are advocating caution lest the move result in rampant mining of the riverbed.
Since 2018, authorised riverbed mining activity has stopped in Himachal Pradesh since the government made permission under the Forest Conservation Act (FCA) mandatory for the same, according to government officials.
A second Himachal government official told ThePrint that the state has formed a panel of experts under the Disaster Management Act to study the Beas river in Kullu and Mandi. “It will come up with a report, after which the state may consider having a dredging policy that will be formulated by the Jal Shakti department,” he said.
“Dredging is required in the major rivers of Himachal as sediments have not been removed for a long time,” a Jal Shakti department official said, adding that “dredging does not mean mining the riverbed but cleaning and creating more space for water”.
The second Himachal official told ThePrint that Union minister Nitin Gadkari had pointed to load of sediment in the Beas river during his tour of Kullu to assess the damage due to floods and heavy rains.
The official added that sediment in the river also comprised the debris of construction that was taking place in urban and semi-urban areas that was dumped in smaller streams which later joined the Beas.
“An expert panel is studying the Beas river to identify sites where the sediment can be mined,” said Sharma.
The PWD official said the department had written to the mining authorities for lifting of material deposited in the rivers and streams as it was flowing over the banks and damaging road infrastructure.
Neighbouring Uttarakhand, the officials said, had the same problem.
“The state (Uttarakhand) has framed a river dredging policy and the irrigation department is looking after it. It involves removing sediment from rivers so that they don’t flow outside the bed. It was seen as one of the major reasons for damage to roads built riverside,” the second Himachal government official said. “Himachal will formulate its plan after the experts are finished with their study of the Beas.”
‘Who will regulate mining?’
Green activist Manshi Ashar, co-founder of Himdhara, an environment research group, said that in the garb of cleaning up sediment, rivers should not be thrown open for mining.
“People have suffered due to the floods and if the state government blames river sediment for it, there will be less resistance (to mining) from the community at this point of time. But it should not become ‘aapda mein avsar’ (an opportunity in troubled times) for mining contractors,” she told ThePrint.
She added that “there could be some spots in the river where sediments are over-accumulated”. “But it requires a scientific study and an interdisciplinary approach so that we do not pave the path for another disaster in the name of a disaster mitigation exercise.”
“Where to mine, how to mine and how much to mine are some key concerns and the Himachal government should not adopt a market-driven approach,” she explained.
Narender Singh Negi, an environmentalist from Kinnaur, echoed the same view.
“Mechanised mining is harmful. Mining is usually not allowed beyond 3-4 ft depth and machines would dig deeper than that. Who will regulate it? The mining department could not curb illegal mining which is going on unabated at several places,” he said.
Mandi, Kullu district survey
A 2018 survey report of Mandi and Kullu, prepared by the mining department, had also highlighted the overaccumulation of sediment in the Beas river and other major streams in the two districts where flooding caused huge damage this monsoon.
But the report had discouraged the use of machines to clean up the riverbed.
“No mechanical mining through mechanical excavator including any other earth-moving machines like JCB, Bulldozer, Poclain, Loader, etc, shall be carried out in river or stream bed by the lease-holder or permit-holder or contractor as the case may be,” it said.
According to the survey, the Beas in Mandi district had a sediment load of around 3.21 crore million tonne.
The report for Mandi had underlined that in certain stretches of river/streams, islands of sand gravel had developed, dividing the river into two streams, which was undesirable. In such places, i.e. central islands, the report said that “mining could be allowed beyond one metre in rare and exceptional circumstances after a detailed study”.
For Kullu, the report discouraged mining below the subterranean water level as a safeguard against environmental contamination and over-exploitation of resources.
A third senior official in the mining department told ThePrint that of Himachal’s 12 districts, permission was required under the FCA for mining in nine — Shimla, Solan, Sirmaur, Kullu, Lahaul Spiti, Kinnaur, Chamba, Mandi, and Bilaspur.
“We auctioned mining sites in these nine districts but most miners could not produce the FCA permission. Now, riverbed mining has almost stopped since 2018. It has led to deposit of thousands of tonnes of sediment in the water bodies, shrinking them and causing floods in nearby areas during the rains,” he said.
The official did not rule out illegal mining activities but said that the amount of illegally-mined material was too less to make a difference to the riverbed.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)